Massey reveals her acting nightmare

The actor Anna Massey has revealed for the first time how she clashed with Edward Bond during rehearsals for his play Summer at the National Theatre in 1982. In her autobiography, Telling Some Tales, Massey describes eight weeks of "intensive and agonising rehearsals" that culminated in stand-up rows in front of the cast.

"Edward lambasted me in front of the other actors, and I could take it no more," she writes. "I stormed off the stage and went to my dressing room. I had never done anything like this before or since, but I really wanted to leave the production ... I was literally sobbing and shaking with fear and rage."

Bond's play deals with a fraught encounter between a wealthy eastern European woman and her former servant, who is terminally ill. Massey says Bond insisted that she perform her role as "pure evil". "He wanted me to play her like the wicked witch ... with fire streaming from my nostrils. My instincts were against every note he gave me and I was in despair."

When the production opened, Massey tried to introduce softer elements to the character. Whenever she did, she says, an admonitory note would arrive from Bond. Massey won an award for her performance, but she says Bond took his revenge: when Summer was published in paperback, Massey's character was omitted from the cover photograph. Bond declined to comment.